Best Kept Secret (The Clifton Chronicles, #3)(43)

Giles remained standing, and looked at a woman he couldn’t have been less likely to spend a dirty weekend in Brighton with. ‘Can you guide me through the procedure?’ he asked.

‘Certainly, Sir Giles,’ said Miss Holt, as if he’d asked her to take dictation. ‘At eight o’clock, we’ll go downstairs and have dinner. I’ve booked a table in the centre of the room, in the hope that someone might recognize you. After dinner, we’ll return to the bedroom. I will remain fully dressed at all times, but you can get undressed in the bathroom, where you will put on your pyjamas and dressing gown. At ten o’clock, I will go and sleep on the bed and you will sleep on the couch. At two a.m., you will phone down to the front desk and order a bottle of vintage champagne, half a pint of Guinness and a round of ham sandwiches. When the night porter delivers your order, you will say that you asked for Marmite and tomato sandwiches, and tell him to bring the correct order immediately. When he returns, you will thank him and give him a five-pound note.’

‘Why such a large tip?’ asked Giles.

‘Because if this should come to court, the night porter will undoubtedly be called to give evidence, and we need to be sure he won’t have forgotten you.’

‘I understand.’

‘In the morning, we will have breakfast together, and when you check out you must pay the bill by cheque, so it can be easily traced. As we leave the hotel, you will embrace me and kiss me several times. You will then get into a taxi and wave goodbye.’

‘Why several times?’

‘Because we need to be sure that your wife’s private detective gets an easily identifiable photograph of us together. Do you have any further questions, Sir Giles, before we go down to dinner?’

‘Yes, Miss Holt. May I ask how often you do this?’

‘You are my third gentleman this week, and the agency has already booked me for a couple of jobs for next week.’

‘This is madness. Our divorce laws are frankly barbaric. The government ought to draft new legislation as soon as possible.’

‘I hope not,’ said Miss Holt, ‘because if you were to do that, Sir Giles, I’d be out of a job.’





ALEX FISHER





1954–1955





17


‘I QUITE SIMPLY want to destroy him,’ she said. ‘Nothing less will satisfy me.’

‘I can assure you, Lady Virginia, I’ll do anything I can to assist.’

‘That’s good to know, major, because if we’re going to work together, we’ll need to trust each other. No secrets. However, I still have to be convinced you’re the right man for the job. Tell me why you think you’re so well qualified?’

‘I think you’ll find I’m over-qualified, my lady,’ said Fisher. ‘Barrington and I go back a long way.’

‘Then start at the beginning and take me through every detail, however insignificant it might seem.’

‘It all began when the three of us were at St Bede’s prep school, and Barrington made friends with the docker’s son.’

‘Harry Clifton,’ said Virginia, spitting out the words.

‘Barrington should have been expelled from St Bede’s.’

‘Why?’ asked Virginia.

‘He was caught stealing from the tuck shop, but he got away with it.’

‘How did he manage that?’

‘His father, Sir Hugo, another criminal, wrote out a cheque for a thousand pounds, which made it possible for the school to build a new cricket pavilion. So the headmaster turned a blind eye, which made it possible for Barrington to go to Oxford.’

‘Did you also go up to Oxford?’

‘No, I joined the army. But our paths crossed again in Tobruk while we were serving in the same regiment.’

‘Which is where he made a name for himself, winning the Military Cross and later escaping from a prisoner-of-war camp?’

‘It should have been my MC,’ said Fisher, his eyes narrowing. ‘I was his commanding officer at the time and responsible for leading an attack on an enemy battery. After I sent the Germans packing, the colonel put me up for an MC, but Corporal Bates, a friend of Barrington’s, refused to endorse my citation, so I was downgraded to mentioned in dispatches, and Barrington ended up getting my MC.’

This wasn’t Giles’s version of what had taken place that day, but Virginia knew which one she wanted to believe. ‘Have you come across him since?’

‘No. I stayed in the army, but once I realized he’d scuppered my chance of getting any further promotion, I took early retirement.’

‘So what do you do now, major?’

‘I’m a stockbroker by profession, as well as being on the board of Bristol Grammar School. I’m also on the executive committee of the local Conservative Association. I joined the party so I could play a role in making sure Barrington doesn’t win at the next election.’

‘Well, I’m going to make sure you play a leading role,’ said Virginia, ‘because the one thing that man cares most about is holding on to his seat in the House of Commons. He’s convinced that if Labour wins the next election, Attlee will offer him a place in the Cabinet.’

‘Over my dead body.’